Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are amongst the most ecologically successful organisms with over 11,000 known species in 20 subfamilies originating 115-170 million years ago. Recent work has advanced our understanding of the evolutionary relationships of this group, giving us a greater appreciation of the evolution of ant social structures, life histories and threats. Despite this research, fundamental questions about ant evolution remain. This PhD project uses phylogenetic comparative methods to address fundamental macroevolutionary and macroecological questions within this group. The student will collate data on ant phylogenetic histories to produce the first ant 'supertree', along with data on social structures, life histories, geographic distributions and threats. These data will be used to test the hypotheses within the following objectives: Objective 1: To quantify the diversification rate shifts in the supertree to identify when the major diversification shifts have occurred in ants and which taxa are particularly responsible. We will test the hypotheses that (1) a more complete phylogeny will not alter the diversification shift at 60-100 MYA detected in ants by a previous study using an incomplete tree, and (2) ant subfamilies which are species-rich (e.g., Myrmicinae, Formicinae and Dolichoderinae) have experienced significant independent shifts in diversification rate which are independent of diversification rate shifts in other parts of the phylogeny. Objective 2: To quantify the factors responsible for the diversification rate shifts identified. We will test the hypothesis that (3) a correlate of species diversification is the degree of, or nature of, caste differentiation. Ants show a large range of caste structures, with variation in the degree of morphological differentiation both between queen and workers and among workers. This hypothesis posits that such diversity is correlated with ecological and evolutionary success at the colony level and thence at the level of species diversification. Objective 3: To determine the distribution and determinants of ant spatial biodiversity and how to prioritise conservation effort most effectively. We will test the hypotheses that (4) areas of ant species-richness and threatened species-richness and associated ecological and environmental determinants are similar to those of other groups, (5) current protected areas adequately conserve ant species-richness and threatened species-richness 'hotspots', and (6) EDGE ant species are not different to those identified as threatened by IUCN, and current IUCN rankings adequately protect ant evolutionary history. As regards Hypothesis 6, ants are cornerstone species in many ecosystems providing a number of essential ecosystem services. By understanding the processes determining their distributions, we can provide priorities for where conservation effort should be focused. We will provide new priorities for species-based conservation efforts by combining IUCN rankings with phylogenetic distinctiveness to create a list of Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) ants fitting into current ZSL-led priority schemes (www.edgeofexistence.org).

Disease and contaminants both pose major risks to wildlife and Man. This is well recognised and there are a variety of surveillance schemes in the UK that monitor wildlife for occurrence and severity of diseases and/or contaminants. These schemes complement rather than duplicate each other but share many operational procedures and so can face similar challenges. The information gathered from each surveillance scheme is communicated to a wide spectrum of end users. The various surveillance schemes are run by different government agencies and laboratories, research centres, institutes and Universities. The funders of the schemes are an equally diverse range of government departments, agencies and industry. A key difficulty caused by this myriad of researchers and funding organisations is that it hampers communication between schemes. The schemes only have opportunistic and ad hoc mechanisms to exchange knowledge or develop common best practices that would facilitate sharing of samples and data. Such cooperation can also be hampered by differences between funders in the priorities that they wish surveillance schemes to address. Furthermore, because each scheme reports its findings largely in isolation, it is difficult for end users to obtain an overview of common or widespread threats. The main aim of this project is to establish a Wildlife Disease & Contaminant Monitoring & Surveillance (WILDCOMS) network. This will provide a partnership between nine current UK contaminant and disease surveillance schemes. The network will foster and facilitate knowledge exchange, harmonisation towards best practice, collaboration and sharing of resources. It will also enhance and widen communication with and between end-users, and in particular will provide end-users with an holistic overview of environmental disease and contaminant risk. This should make identification of emerging hazards and risks easier and quicker to spot, and provide the more integrated scientific evidence base needed to formulate better and timely policy and regulation. The specific objectives, delivered in four work packages, will be: (i) to establish and develop the network through regular partners meetings (ii) to use the network to maximise communication of integrated surveillance information to a wide range of end-users through an annual Stakeholder Forum and through collation of findings from all schemes into web-based quarterly bulletins (iii) development towards harmonised operational procedures (sample collection, measurement, data recording and sample archiving) that will facilitate sharing and collaboration between schemes and eliminate duplication of effort (iv) to develop a sustainable model for WILDCOMS and extend its scope to a European scale through linkage with key European partners and networks WILDCOMS will thus facilitate sharing of skills, expertise, knowledge, samples and data, thereby maximising the use of available resources. This will result in better value for money overall and foster development of new initiatives. The benefits the network will deliver can be summarised as: (a) ntegrated surveillance leading to an improved scientific evidence base with which regulators and policy makers can assess threats to wild vertebrates and human health (b) better long term management, sharing and dissemination of samples, best practice and data (c) a recognised forum that will facilitate discussion and collaboration between surveillance schemes and different end-users and stakeholders (d) an enhanced UK research base by increasing knowledge through scientific publications and greater awareness of activities and specimen archives (e) benefits for industrial end users including potential for averting costs by preventing problems (f) benefits to quality of life to the through improved risk assessment

Many pathogens of global health and conservation concern infect multiple host species. Ebola is a classic example, circulating naturally within a 'reservoir' host community, and with the potential to jump across to another host species with devastating effect. Clearly it is vital to understand how such pathogens are maintained in their host communities, and which species play a major role in spreading those pathogens. However, obtaining that understanding is notoriously hard. We have recently developed a mathematical approach to measure a host community's ability to maintain a pathogen, and identify 'key hosts' that drive pathogen spread. Importantly, unlike previous methods, this approach can be parameterised using relatively coarse-grained, easily-collected data (standard measures of host abundance and infection occurrence). We will provide the first rigorous test of this model, applying it to a natural 'multihost'-pathogen system of major conservation concern: chytrid fungus ('Bd') in amphibian communities. Bd is a major cause of amphibian declines worldwide, but we don't understand how it spreads through or is maintained by amphibian communities. We will apply our mathematical approach to historical and new data, and use it to identify those key hosts, and predict the effect of removing them. Crucially, we will then directly test those predictions by carrying out species removal experiments. Overall this will provide a rigorous test of our mathematical tool, show how host communities affect pathogen spread in general, and provide specific guidelines for the management of Bd in particular.

Indonesia has been identified as one of the key areas for the range-wide recovery of tigers. Tiger distributions across Sumatra are increasingly well known through current efforts to sample remaining natural landcover using large scale detection/non-detection surveys. These survey and monitoring methods are being developed under the Tigers Forever (TF) initiative to be as accurate and bias free as possible. This initiative seeks to identify the distribution of tigers, prey species and the associated anthropogenic threats across Sumatra. Field teams are collecting data on tiger sign, prey species, habitat and indicators of human activity. These studies combined, provide an unrivalled opportunity to examine the impact of human disturbance and habitat type on the distributions of Sumatran tigers and other threatened mammal species. In the proposed research, the demographic data collected during TF surveys will be combined with genetic information obtained from tiger scats, to gain a wider understanding of population size and structure (within and between subpopulations), estimates of habitat suitability (in terms of prey availability) and ultimately overall population viability. The wider survey efforts, complemented by the analysis of these genetic samples, will inform changes in management practice for the longer-term persistence of remnant tiger populations.

Modern-day amphibians are known to be suffering rates of extinction that far exceed any other class of vertebrates, including those experienced by mammals and birds, and nearly one third of amphibian species are threatened. The question of why amphibians are going extinct at these accelerated rates has puzzled scientists for three decades. A clue to the mystery came about when scientists working in Central America and Australia noted that the rapid declines in amphibian biodiversity were spreading in a wave-like manner. These patterns of decline were caused by an emerging infectious disease and in 1997 researchers discovered that a fungal pathogen, called a 'chytrid', was the cause, naming it Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Since then, our research has identified South East Asia as the cradle of this amphibian pandemic, and has mapped the spread of Bd worldwide At the same time, alongside finding regions of the world where Bd is highly pathogenic, we have also discovered places where it is not causing any obvious disease which begs the question Why? Increasingly, we find that the invasion, establishment and amplification of Bd in uninfected amphibians is strongly influence by the microbial communities that are found inhabiting the skins of amphibians. As Alexander Fleming famously discovered, microbes predate and attack one another with a diverse array of strategies and our research seeks to understand how this microbial warfare influences whether an amphibian community survives, or succumbs, to its infection. This question will be addressed by using high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies to characterise the microbes on amphibians around the world using molecular barcoding techniques. Our main idea is that the amphibians that survive infection infection are 'clothed' by a protective community of bacteria and fungi. We will show whether this it true, then will attempt to identify the toxic molecules that are protecting the amphibians from their chytrid onslaught. Finally, we will seek to isolate and grow microbes that are protective against Bd - sometimes called 'probiotics'. Here, we will extend our focus to include fungi because (and as Fleming showed) they can be very potent protectors against invasive organisms. We already have isolated candidate fungal 'promycotics', and we will use experiments to determine whether they do in fact protect amphibians against lethal infection by Bd; such promycotics may then offer a much-needed biocontrol against emerging pathogens such as Bd. This, ultimately, is the major applied goal of our project.